Walk A Mile in her Stilletos
by LMAnne
Summary: It took a while with some, but once I knew someone, I also knew where they would be in twenty years, or if they wouldn't exist at all, just a memory, just smoke that no one would remember when it was gone. Nothing. Just like me. Alice's story. Please R&R!
1. At First Glance

That I was the freak of the family was obvious. I was not allowed to eat at the family table until I was fourteen, despite the fact that my sister, Cynthia Beatrice, who was four years younger than I, was allowed to dine with the adults when she was nine. Also, I was, according to the servants, the only member of the family from 1862 to have a nurse until age fifteen. My sister gave hers up when she was eight. It wasn't that I was strange, really. More that I was not normal.

I was not, as Mother said, "fit to live in the Brandon way". Though she treated me in nearly the same way as the other children, I could tell that she thought me a disgrace. And truthfully, I would agree, along with all of my relatives, most of whom pretended with increasing frequency that I didn't exist. I was not normal. I had no proper upbringing. The Brandons were not at the top of society in Biloxi in 1901, and thus could not afford to have the public knowing that they had a peculiar daughter. The mayor would most likely attempt to ship me off to the freak show in the traveling band. Good "personal representation", as Father called it.

I suppose you wouldn't believe me if I told you the way in which I am odd. It is not the normal way that most people would expect. I am not mentally or physically retarded or any sort of visible defect in my nature. However, after a while of talking to me, it becomes blatantly obvious that I am not normal. There are many peculiarities with which I am stricken. Or perhaps stricken is not the correct word. I have been like this since I was an infant. To put this bluntly, it is with these symptoms that I am plagued: I am extremely small, I have vivid memories of all that I have experienced since I was born, and I see flashes into the future.

As to the first, due to my short stature, I am extremely displeasing to my family. The good people of Biloxi see only those women who are able-bodied to carry children as full citizens. Although, in truth, women are more possessions than people, but that is a problem that cannot be rectified and which has no bearing on the proceedings here. Needless to say, I am disassociated from modern society due to this height oddity. This perhaps doesn't seem like such a big thing to you, but there is no respect for those who are considered 'midgets', even if they are perfectly proportioned and even called "beautiful" by certain men with wandering eyes. But this is certainly the least of my peculiarities, and so I shall move forward.

In regards to my, for want of a better term, photographic memory, I seem to not be truly bothered by this problem. No one seems to talk to me for long enough to notice this peculiarity, and thus it is not a worthwhile issue to be touched upon. We must venture to the far reaches of my strangeness, now, as we discuss my last oddity.

The flashes of premonition are not very precise. I get only flickers, unless I concentrate, which I try not to do unless I am alone as Mother scolds me for attempting to further my gift. Thankfully, when my nurse was removed from my services last year, I gained much alone time which I spend mostly attempting to see further into the things that simply come to me. With this talent, however, comes great responsibility. I must not let on that I am having any sort of premonition. No one but my old nurse, Cynthia, Mother and Father knows about my visions, and no one else is allowed to know. It is a locked secret with a melted key, as Gran sometimes called it when she was alive.

Oh, how I miss my Gran! She was truly the only person who treated me as an equal, not a freak by any standards. She alone fought for me. She saved me from a premature death when my parents considered it after finding out about my talents. She kept me at home. Even though my name is Mary Alice, she always called me Alice, just Alice. I now realize that it was old age and that she had forgotten my real name, but for me, at the time, it was a term of endearment. I cherished the time she spent with me at our small home in the bustling city of Biloxi. It was an escape. Gran meant freedom, and when she died, that was stripped away. I felt naked without her, my fearless and noble protector. That was when I learned that you must be your own valiant soldier, your own boldest protector. You can count on no one. This I have learned.


	2. Silence and Solidarity

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the storyline.**

**A/N: Hello, everyone! Thank you so much for reading, with an extra thank-you to Mademoiselle-Plume for her excellent review! Here's the latest installment. I hope you like it! R&R, please! 3 Always, L.**

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More than anything, I wish I could be normal. It seems that if I were, I would finally be noticed. It's not that I want to be in the spotlight, really. It's more to do with the fact that I can walk down the street and have no one stop to talk or even smile or wave at me. No one would even mind if I disappeared. If I ran away, I would not be missed. Of this I am certain, although it is by the gift which is both a blessing and a curse that I came to know this, which makes me wary to follow what I know should be done.

I wonder if, just once, Father would come home after a business trip and bring me a nice present, like he brought to Cynthia whenever he was away, and I would be accepted. At the present, I am not. I am still being examined most carefully by the most discreet as well as most thorough mental health specialists that Father could afford on his middle-class salary. Mother, whose name was Caroline Anabel, did not work, as was custom, and so it was only my father's minimal wages that kept our family's lifestyle alive and flourishing.

Mother, reflecting her own mother's Southern Belle nature, rarely left the house, preferring to send her lady's maid wherever she was needed. It was really a fine arrangement, as Bertha, which was her name, was a jolly woman who loved to take Cynthia and me out on walks in the park nearby our home. This meant that I was able to escape what was becoming a more and more depressing environment. My room was stripped of its color, it seemed. I had been turned into a monster by my gift, and now I felt trapped in this prison cell of a bedroom.

Due to the increased times of supervision from what I had gained back when I gave up my nurse, it appeared that my parents were becoming more and more inclined to put me in the asylum. I probably wouldn't mind, except that I truly did not know whether or not I could find someone with whom to be friends. I need to be needed. I can't go through life having no one to talk to, to confide in… I need a friend. On my parents' request, none of my siblings socialize with me very much, and I am very lonely. I wish I would be noticed. Loved. Even cared about! But no one can see through the mask. I am shrouded in the shadows of my gifts. I wish that someone could have eyesight enough to see through.

It's not fair, really. That I am alone while everyone else around me is loved and accepted, I mean. It seems like I have upset the powers that be somehow. But being like this from when I was an infant


End file.
